Madison's Final Moments....

We just wanted to update everyone on Madison...

Madison passed away on August 1, 2010 at 1:14am. This is the story (condensed version) of her final hours and moments...

On Saturday, Jason and I met at the hospital around noon, during Jason's MBA class break. Usually, we did not get a chance to go to see Madison together between the kids and schedules, so it was nice that we were going to meet and be able to be together. When, I arrived at the hospital, the doctor was waiting for me, and said that Madison was not doing well. I called Jason and told him to hurry and get to the hospital as the UGA MBA building is about 10 minutes away from the hospital. When Jason got to the hospital, the doctor came and talked to us. She said that Madison's lab results were elevated and she was back on the Oscillator, the high powered ventilator. Also, the doctor said that they had been able to feed, small amounts of milk, all night and she had done ok with it. They were interested in why she did so well over the night eating, since she had been unable to tolerate the feedings before. They did an x-ray which came back abnormal. At that point, the doctors were unsure of what was causing the problems. I asked the doctor on a scale of 1 to 10 how worried she was about Madison and she said about a 9. Not good...

Jason had to go back to his second class, since it is finals time, and I went back to pick up the kids, at my parents house. Jason and my dad were going to meet, at 4:30pm ,after his class, to give Madison a blessing. After Jason got home, I was going to go back to the hospital to be with Madison during the evening and night.

I got home and put the kids down for afternoon naps, and decided to lay down and take a nap too . Just after I laid down, I got a call from the doctor telling me that they did another x-ray and found a perforation in Madison's bowel. They were unsure of how bad it was but that she was in critical condition and we needed to get back to the hospital now. I called Jason and my parents and we all left right away to go to the hospital. Thank you sweet Bonnie for dropping everything and coming to watch the kids!

When we got to the hospital, Madison was surrounded by nurses and the doctor. The doctor talked to us about Madison's condition and our options. Basically, she had a perforation in her bowl that ideally needed surgery. However, she was too small and too unstable to transfer her across the street to the children's hospital. The perforation was causing air and junk to leak into her stomach and the air was crushing her lungs. The second option was to put a drain into her stomach and let the air and junk out. A surgeon from the children's hospital would come over and do the surgery at her bedside. Even though the surgery was not long term and did not have a high long term success rate, something needed to be done immediately. I talked with the surgeon, on the phone, and we decided to go ahead and do the drain surgery.

Before the surgeon did the surgery, we were able to give Madison a blessing. Jason gave her a beautiful blessing, as he had with all her others, we all felt the Lord with us. The surgery solved the immediate problem, however, there were other complications such as her brain bleeding she had had as well as her kidneys had stopped functioning early that morning around 5am. Her liver was already damaged from only being on iv nutritional and not milk and they were concerned that she would not be able to get big enough, only on iv nutrition, to get the major surgery on her intestines.

We waited until the 10pm test results came back but they did not look good. At that point, Madison was beginning to swell since her kidneys were not working and she was on a morphine drip as well as other pain medications. We began to pray that we would know what to do for our sweet baby. We were blessed to feel that Madison's purpose on this life had been fulfilled and it was her time to go. We had my parents and Jason's parents come back down to the hospital so that they could be there for her final moments. We had to sign a DNR and DNI so that we could take her off her machines.

Since Jason and I had never gotten to hold her, only touch her through the incubator, we decided that we wanted a chance to hold her, while she was still alive, and before things became critical and we did not have that chance.

The doctors and nurses gave her a lot of pain medication and put her on a portable ventilator and moved her into a private room so we could hold her. It was so great to be able to hold her! Everyone was able to have a chance to hold her and then the doctors pulled out her ventilator. Madison lived about 5 to 10 minutes and then she joined her Heavenly Father. We were able to continue holding her as long as we wanted and then take out all her IVs and pick lines and give her a bath and dress her. The doctors, nurses, and hospital staff were so wonderful. Thank you to Jenn and Chris and Ken and Donna for taking the kids for a couple days so that we could have a break and plan the funeral!

The ward has been amazing and so loving and we are grateful for everyone's love and support.

Jason and I know that Madison is with her Father in Heaven and that Families are Eternal and Forever. We are beyond grateful for this knowledge and the comfort that it has brought to us. We know that our sweet baby is a perfect little being and it gives our family renewed drive to live better lives so that we can be with her once again. We have had our moments, and will continue to do so, but for the most part we are doing ok. We are at peace knowing Madison is in a much better place and we are grateful she is not suffering anymore. We are proud of her for fulfilling her mission here one earth and being such a brave little girl for doing so. She fought a great fight and is "our little lion".We love our sweet baby so so much and while we miss her, we are so greatful she is part of our family.